Beware of comedians mercilessly lampooning anti-Semites

Image via Wikipedia; remove Dome of the Rock and insert Temple here

Greetings.

Jewish date:  Jewish date:  18 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Pineḥas).

Today’s holidays:  The Three Weeks (Judaism), First Martyrs of the Church of Rome (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. “Papa Doc” Duvalier (Church of the SubGenius).


NOTE:  There was no blogging yesterday due to the Fast of Tammuz, which begins the Three Weeks, a period of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other tragedies in Jewish history.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Save dairy farms from big agribusiness”, “Alliance for Justice:  Tell Congress: Repair the Damage Caused by the Corporate Court”, and “Make Sale of Crush Videos Illegal Again!”.

Topic 1:  Today’s daily dose of anti-Semitism updates.  To start off, I will let the comedians at La’ṭmah lampoon current anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism in “The Three Terrors from Iran, Syria and Turkey -full Tribal Update” and “The Muslim War Council”:


Let’s face it:  comedians can say true things with impunity that many other people would hesitate say at all.  The Dry Bones cartoon “Immigrants (1990)” correctly notes the different attitudes of Israel on Jewish immigrants and Islamic countries on “Palestinian” immigrants; the former I, as a future immigrant to Israel, am grateful for, while the latter is beneath contempt and a complete betrayal of the notion that all Muslims are supposed to brothers and sisters.  “Bret Stephens on Shalom TV: Will Israel Survive?” presents a “liberal case” for Israel:

Mr. Stephens correctly notes that the values of Israeli society and government are in close agreement with liberal values, while the values are Islamic countries are contradictory to liberal values; it therefore makes no sense for liberals to back Islamic states.  “Telegraph Caught Recycling Gaza War Photo to Distort Today's Reality” documents using an old photograph as if it were applicable to the current situation, a form of quoting out of context.  Rav Shmuely Boteach presents “Response to Congressman Rothman Calling Pres. Obama the Best Friend Israeli Security has Ever Had” and “The World’s Oldest Hatred”, noting correctly that Obama is no friend of Israel (actually, to be fair, every US president since at least Jimmy Carter, has tried to get Israel to do stupid things in the name of “peace”) and that Israel-bashers tend to be insensitive to things wrong with other countries, such as Israel’s enemies.

On a brighter note:  “Dutch may use 'decoy Jews' to fight racism” discusses a new tactic in fighting anti-Semitic attacks in Holland.  Apparently not everything is looking hopeless.

Also:  Someone please prod me to get back to writing about Jesus for a change and not to concentrate too much on the Arab-Israeli War.  We are most likely going to be dealing with the Arab-Israeli War so long as our planet uses petroleum as fuel, and there is no way one man can comment on everything on this one topic.  Not to mention that there is material in Sanhedhrin 43a that presents a radically un-Christian picture of one “Yeshu hanNoṣri”, and there is some particularly un-Jewish and anti-Semitic material in the Gospel According to John which really needs to be discussed.

Topic 2:  More Islamic misbehavior:  “Pakistan's Karachi wracked by spate of killings” (as if killing those one disagreed with made one right), “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for 'blasphemy'” (as if censorship worked), “Ad aims to propagate true Islam” (as if positive advertising made up for news reporting all the horrible things done in the name of Islam, especially when they contradict the ads), “Ill. police revoke 1st Muslim chaplain's post” (the guy was linked to terrorists, absolutely the wrong sort of person to be in public service).

Related commentary:  “Jihad Denial Syndrome”.  Wishful thinking will never make Islam a religion of peace.  Only Muslims can actually make that happen.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “Adam and Apple”.  I am not quite sure what, if anything, this cartoon is meant to mean.

Peace.

Aaron

The writers of Caprica have the subtlety of hitting someone in the head with a sledgehammer

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 Shevaṭ 5770 (Parashath Mishpaṭim).

Today’s holiday:  Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Time to shame Sen. Shelby”.

Topic 1:  Episode 2 of Caprica: “Rebirth”.  The series finally moves beyond the pilot.  This episode deals largely with (1) Zoe Graystone II trying to hide from everyone except Lacy Rand that she is not an ordinary, insentient Cylon, and (2) many of the other major characters, unsurprisingly, still having severely disturbed behavior and emotions.  Most of what else happens is not especially religious in nature.  However, we do get a peak into the lives of the Soldiers of the One.  Lacy visits Sister Clarice Willow at home to discover that the latter is in a polygamous marriage—and I mean polygamous, not polygynous; there are multiple wives and husbands.  There is also the strong implication that Sister Clarice has had sex with students for (allegedly) therapeutic purposes.  I will take this as a sign that the writers are trying to make the Soldiers of the One unsympathetic.

Topic 2:  More religious intolerance (and, no, this recurring topic is not going away anytime soon):  “Constitutional Court Taking Up Indonesia's Thorny Religious Row”, “Pakistan double bombing kills Shia Muslims”, “Anti-Semitic attacks against Jews 'rise in the UK'”, “Attacks on Christians in India’s Karnataka Frequent, Furious”, and “Arrested Evangelists in Tanzania Say Muslims Colluded with Police”.  Meanwhile, Ṣippi Livni, Israel’s opposition leader, is planning to visit the UK in a direct challenge to laws there allowing for the arrest under universal jurisdiction of anyone who has allegedly committed war crimes.  There has been a threat of abuse of such laws by anti-Semites against Israelis.  I have to admire her attitude.  There is some effort at changing the law in the UK, but we yet have to see if anything substantial comes of it.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “Well, this is going back”:


Peace.

Aaron

Someone’s dreaming of an atheist Christmas...

Greetings.

Jewish date:  21 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Wayyeshev).

Today’s holidays:  Immaculate Conception (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Save BioGems: Take Action: Protect the Redrock Wilderness” and ONE | A Global Gift“”.

Image of this absurdly alleged atheist symbol via Wikipedia

Topic 1:  “Humanists launch a godless holiday campaign”.  The American Humanist Association, an atheist group, is trying to push the intrinsically self-contradictory notion of an atheistic Christmas again.  This is despite the fact that things with the Greek root christ in them tend to be distinctively Christian.  It does not matter how banal the holiday gets in popular culture.  Everyone knows that Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and people wearing Santa Claus hats and the slogan “No God? . . . No problem!” only looks like an attempt to steal a holiday.  And I think it appropriate to repeat—with updates!—some sarcasm I made at the infamous atheist bus campaign a while back:

No God? How can this not be a problem???  ARGH! All life is totally meaningless! There’s no afterlife, and all life is going to end in dismal oblivion! This is the ultimate problem!!!  What a horrible, horrible situation! How the gezornenblat are we going to handle something so terrible?  How can we possibly not need a god to get us out of such a situation?

Why, why, why can’t the militant atheists get their own holiday and show people the (alleged) beauty of atheism instead of nonsense like this current lame campaign?

Also:  The irony of atheists, who often claim to be pro-reason, trying to make use of the symbol of Santa Claus, belief in whom is often pushed for children despite its well-publicized irrationality, is not lost on me.

Topic 2:  More religious oppression:  “Tibetan Buddhist nun dies. She was in prison for protesting in favour of the Dalai Lama”, “Somalia: Al-Shabaab Kills People Inside Mosque” (Sunnis against Sufis!), “MALDIVES: What do Maldivians understand freedom of religion or belief to be?”.  There is much more of this that gets reported in the news than I report on this blog.

Topic 3:  More religious humor:  “Praeing Mantis needz to prae harder”.

This picture displays a commonly repeated misconception about prayer:  that prayer itself accomplishes goals.  In reality, all prayer itself can accomplish is to make sound and some psychological effects on the worshipper and those who are aware of the prayer.  To pray is to actually praise, thank, or petition one or more gods.  Note a fundamental asymmetry of power:  one can request something from a god, but one cannot actually force the god do anything.  Sometimes the answer to a prayer is “no”.

Aaron